


sons and daughters of hungry ghosts

by dabblingDilettante



Series: they say you and me are tautology [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 08:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23968450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dabblingDilettante/pseuds/dabblingDilettante
Summary: Edelgard loses everything.Thankfully, Dimitri has plenty of experience on that end of the spectrum.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Edelgard von Hresvelg
Series: they say you and me are tautology [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728787
Comments: 8
Kudos: 75
Collections: FE3H Siblings Week





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> modern AU i've been kicking around my head for a while. i wanna do more for the rest of the days of sibling week, but i've mostly just wanted modern AU dimitri and edelgard moving in together after dealing with tough stuff and the two of them healing and dealing with Brain Stuff together as they pick up the pieces of their lives. Fambly.

In the aftermath of the war, as some of their friends would come to call it down the line, Edelgard was left without a home. Or not so much a home – it was hard to call her uncle’s various properties homes, considering the way the man had been in his later years. With her father’s death had come her inevitable attempt to take over a company that only continued its downward ethical spiral. 

And with her foolish attempt to stop it came her ousting.

So Edelgard did not call herself homeless. She did not call the sudden closure of her accounts a lost cause. To have money she’d made personally, even, ripped out of her hands. She could not call this any worse than the other miseries of her life. But it was frustrating. Nail-bitingly, hair-tearingly, skin-scratchingly frustrating

She couldn’t very well stay at homeless shelters. Those were for people who had nowhere else to go. To take that from someone who had less than she was unthinkable. Edelgard hadn’t been utterly foolish. She’d paid off her car and she could sleep in that. She had made sure to pull cash from her accounts prior to the fallout – but in trying to avoid pulling out too much, even that would dwindle quickly with what few meals she could buy to eat alone. Her phone had been quickly disconnected by her uncle, foolish as she had been to forget to change the plan over the years.

“It’s always the little things you forget,” she muttered to herself. Laying in the back of her car, surrounded by dry shampoo containers, she slowly munched through a gas station taquito. At least now she had free time.

Hubert was probably losing his mind. She had a hard time believing he hadn’t heard the news yet, but knowing him, he was keeping it under wraps. No one understood the need for secrecy in her plans like he did. Mutual friends and acquaintances discovering her shame would do little good for her in the midst of this struggle. She just needed time. Given time, Edelgard thought, she could easily fix this. Get some of her money back. Argue her partial ownership of her father’s dealings. Do something. She could do this. Edelgard choked on her taquito and lunged for a bottle of water. It was too spicy.

-

Edelgard couldn’t spend long each day sleeping. In a large city, there weren’t much in the way of parking lots. Walmarts were easy enough to camp in at night, with all the trucks there to shield her presence, but if she planned to stay in the city she didn’t have many options. Sometimes she could find houses to park in front of for a handful of hours, but never long enough for a full night of sleep.

Some of her friends had houses. Most of them still had apartments, like Dorothea and Caspar, but Ferdinand had a house. She couldn’t sleep there for the godawful amount of lights and sprinklers were on the lawn, but he certainly had a house. Bernadetta’s father had a house he rarely stayed at and it made a good place to rest for a few nights. It didn’t make her feel any better to stay near anyone she knew.

Thus, Edelgard camped out in the long dark driveway to Sylvain’s house.

A clatter of trash cans woke her up. Pulling out a knife, she was quick to leap to the window, hair dry and wild around her. Outside the car, like a deer caught in headlights, was a person with eye bags so dark he could be a raccoon. His hands were still stuck in the trash as he stared at her silently rolling down the window.

“Are you okay?” Edelgard asked, apprehensive. She wouldn’t normally reach out to someone, but from where she stood, it made her feel a little better that she was not in his position right now. “Do you … need anything.”

“Edelgard?” the man asked, just as apprehensive. As if reading her confused mind, he raised his hands, open palmed. “It’s just … I’m Dimitri.” He waited for some recognition on her part, but she didn’t couldn’t place him. “My dad and your mom, they were married. For a bit.” He trailed off under her stare. “We … spent a year together? You taught me to dance.” He waved his hands in the air. “We’re step-siblings?”

“Yes,” she finally answered, still not fully convinced. She recognized him to a degree, despite the massive coat he wore and his shaggy hair. “Dimitri Alexander Blaiddyd. If I am not mistaken.” Edelgard could not place what he spoke of, but she knew exactly who he was. Former future leader of the Blaiddyd organization before her uncle bought them out. The two of them had gone to college together. He had majored in the arts, some useless thing, before eventually dropping out.

It had been years since she’d seen him, let alone interacted with him.

Edelgard asked, “Is there a reason you’re digging through the trash.”

“Oh.” He said it like he’d forgotten. “Sylvain accidentally threw away the password to his security system so I came out here to look for it because he hasn’t been able to get into the house in a few days …” Dimitri trailed off, for a moment, before nodding himself back into the present. “He’s been trying to call the company and didn’t want me to do this. So I had to come here late to help him.”

“I see,” Edelgard said. 

Dimitri stared at her without answering. It felt wrong to simply roll her window back up, but as she began to, he asked, “Why are you here?”

“I was on a business trip,” she lied effortlessly. Edelgard had plenty of time to make up stories about the excellent reasons as to why and how and why. “I had to drive back and was getting tired on the way back, so I pulled in here to get some rest. I didn’t realize this was Sylvain’s house.”

“…Do you need a place to stay?” Dimitri asked.

“No.”

Dimitri’s tired frown did not fade. But he didn’t reject her answer. “Could you give me a ride back to my apartment, then? The next bus won’t come for a few hours.”

In a normal bout of decision making, Edelgard would say no with due confidence. She only had so much time in the day. She only had so much space and energy to give. But for some reason, whether it was loneliness or foolishness, the word that came out of her mouth was, “Sure.”

Dimitri didn’t say anything about the trash cluttering the back of her car or the blanket and pillow she hastily threw in the trunk. Edelgard wasn’t foolish enough to think he couldn’t piece together the truth, but it didn’t matter if he didn’t ask. It didn’t matter as long as he didn’t care.

The ride was silent at first. Each time she glanced at Dimitri, his head was against the glass window, staring intently at each street lamp the two passed. This man had been her greatest rival in the business world. That was what her life had been set up to be, after all her siblings had been counted as failures for taking over. Only Edelgard could take over. Only she understood what her uncle and the board wanted and that meant she had to be able to defeat anyone. Even another hopeless child like herself set up to be a pin against a bowling ball. 

“Have you been okay,” he asked.

The question made her sick. “I’ve been fine,” she lied, words bitter in her mouth. “How has the Blaiddyd business been going. Well, I hope?”

“Gave it up,” he said, still staring out the window. “Mercedes and Felix had a long talk about it after I got out. I didn’t want to, at first, but they were right.” His shoulders rose limply in semblance of a shrug. “I write, now. Sometimes I help out Mercedes with her charities. Dedue’s been teaching me to cook. I don’t think about that much anymore.”

“I see,” she said. Edelgard imagined if she could see her fingers past her gloves, that the bone would be breaking free of her skin from how tightly she held the steering wheel. “Which intersection do I take.”

Dimitri guided her down the roads and typed slowly into his phone. It wasn’t a terribly long trip. His apartment wasn’t far from downtown and so late, it wasn’t such a pain to drive. However, when Edelgard waited for him to get out of her car, he didn’t move.

“You can park in the garage,” he said, quiet. “I’ve got a couch that folds out. This is better than my last apartment. It has a full bath so you can relax, too.”

“I’m planning on driving home,” Edelgard answered, staring straight forward. “I got enough rest where I last stopped. No need to worry about me.”

“Hubert texted me,” Dimitri said.

Edelgard’s fingers curled involuntarily.

“I was surprised. I didn’t know he had my number. Apparently Mercedes’ brother is a friend of his. He told me to call him, so I did.” Edelgard heard the thump of Dimitri’s head against the car seat. “He told me everything, El. He knew you would avoid help because you don’t like pity, but he asked me to stay on the look-out.”

“Everything is fine,” Edelgard murmured.

“I used to say that a lot too,” said Dimitri. “At least take a bath. …Your hair looks okay, but you forgot deodorant.”

For all Edelgard’s strength, all her stubbornness, the idea of taking a simple shower made her want to cry. “Just a bath,” she said.

Dimitri hummed.

Despite what she said, he still dragged in her blanket and pillow, only to throw them into a washing machine as they entered his apartment. And despite what she said, Edelgard still found herself passing out the moment she laid down on his couch.


	2. we tread it carefully

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt Sharing for siblings week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more. this is late because its for day 3 but i have work and finals. s o o o . oh well. anyway.  
> thinking about confrontations but also the two of them being weird.

What was one night turned into several, and before Edelgard rightly understood, Dimitri had installed an inflatable bed in an unused room without a word. Sleep became a genuine comfort. Where her days before had been a stress fugue of nonstop work, she was now left with the anxiety of nothing. Upon waking, she’d jolt out of bed, sun shining too bright in her eyes. Edelgard could run out of the room into an unfamiliar hall and each day find Dimitri with a pan in his hand. He picked excess egg shells out of the scramble and she would watch in some confusion before piecing her reality back together.

No job, no future, no life.

Edelgard would lay back down and sleep the facts away.

Dimitri stood in the door and said, “Made an omelet.”

“I can’t eat cheese,” she muttered into her pillow. One of the only things she’d gotten out of her apartment before the locks were changed.

“Oh,” he said. Though Edelgard tried to ignore him, Dimitri remained in the door. “That’s rough.” She pulled the blanket over her head, but he didn’t take the hint. “Ashe gave me a really nice cheddar recently. It’s good with eggs.”

Edelgard threw the blanket off and sat up. “I apologize, Dimitri, but I am not well. I would prefer to rest alone rather than continue a conversation when the two of us have nothing to share.”

Though she wanted her words to drive him away, she still felt a twinge of guilt upon looking at his tired face. He was being … reasonable, she admitted to herself. Dimitri said, “I’ll make you some eggs without cheese.”

“I’m nauseous,” she said.

“Boiled, then. I’m better at that.” With those words, Dimitri finally walked away, leaving Edelgard with a profound sense that she had lost the argument.

It became a normal turn of phrase for the days she spent sharing Dimitri’s apartment. Where she would refuse to leave the room or get up or eat, he would return with something so simple she could not just turn it away. Bacon and sandwiches and hamburgers and eggs and pasta. Deceptive and a massive cheat to the way she was supposed to be living her life. Edelgard was supposed to only eat specific foods and always watch her appearance and never indulge too much, because enjoying life meant risking it getting the best of her.

She tried to be asleep before Dimitri would return to find the food gone.

The fifth day, Dimitri said, “I’ll tell Hubert where you are if you don’t get up.”

Edelgard tightened her grip on the blanket. “I fail to understand why you would not have already.”

“Because you didn’t want anyone to know how you are,” he answered, like it was the most obvious reason in the world. “Regardless. I’ll tell him soon.”

She waited for him to leave to enact his threat, but it was only when she heard the first step of Dimitri turning away that she said, “I don’t have clean pants.”

“I’ve got shorts,” he said.

“You’re massive,” Edelgard replied.

“They’ve got elastic ties.” She refused to acknowledge him for that, but Dimitri quickly returned and threw clothes at her head. “You can wash your clothes, too.”

It wasn’t just oversized cloth shorts that Dimitri handed off. There was a shirt just as big, large enough that it hung long as a dress when she wore it. Never had Edelgard been made to feel so short as she did in that moment, but she bit the bullet and tucked the hem into the elastic shorts. It helped the shorts stay up, she had to admit, and it was only long enough to wash her actual clothes. Dimitri’s snort as she walked into the hall on unsteady feet dragged her back into the utter distaste of looking like a log.

“Thank you,” she said coolly. “Next time you are cast out of your home, I will make sure to offer you one of my dress suits for casual wear. I’m sure there’s enough fabric on that for one of your legs.”

Dimitri nodded like he wasn’t listening. Instead, he stared intently at the bowl in front of him, open box of Honeycomb to the side. Edelgard scoffed at the sight. Even if she could drink milk and have cereal in the morning, she was an adult. Adults only ate Wheaties or Corn Flakes. Adults didn’t indulge in sugar garbage. She threw her clothes in the washing machine and sat down opposite Dimitri.

“Are you happy, then,” she started. 

He shrugged, but after Edelgard raised an eyebrow, he clarified. “I appreciate that you listened.”

She crossed her arms. “I can’t say you were wrong. It was uncomfortable wearing those clothes for so long. And, as absurd as this may look, your offerings are preferable at this point.”

“I used to wear mostly suits,” Dimitri said into his cereal. “The board did not appreciate more casual wear or things like jeans and work-out clothing. When I met Ashe in college, he thought it strange. He gave me my favorite sweatshirt.” Dimitri pulled at the top he wore, one filled with minor holes and old stains. Edelgard wished she could turn her nose up at it, but it wasn’t as if she’d ever had the courage to keep anything a friend had given her. “These are the best clothes I know.”

“Yes,” Edelgard answered, unsure just why Dimitri intended this as any kind of conversation. 

A silence settled between them as she sat doing nothing and he continued to slowly chew through his cereal, pushing it around the bowl with a spoon. As if remembering something, he looked up at her with wide eyes. “You’re hungry.”

“I had assumed you had a reason for asking me to get out of bed, be it food or some kind of talk,” she said.

Regardless of what she said, Dimitri was already up and going through the fridge. “I have some cold rice … more eggs.” He grunted in some consternation. “Do you eat cereal?”

“Not the kind you insist on,” said Edelgard with a shake of her head. “Nor can I drink milk.”

“Honeycomb is good,” he insisted.

“It’s filled with sugar and is more dessert than appropriate first meal to your day,” she answered.

“I can’t really taste it,” he said, dropping left overs on his stove. “It’s mostly a texture thing.” Dimitri dumped rice into the pan without asking, following it with unlabeled sauces and an egg. “It has holes which capture the milk and it is nice to chew.”

Before long, he had placed a bowl before Edelgard filled with fried rice. Before she could speak or eat, Dimitri put up a hand. He placed a boiled egg at the side of the bowl and cut it open to allow its soft boiled yolk to slowly drain into the rice.

“This is good,” he said as a matter of fact.

“Is it spicy?” was her first question, but Edelgard backstepped. “Spice can add a strong level of depth to a dish that may not have it otherwise.”

Dimitri’s face dropped and she almost felt bad. “I don’t think I have anything for spice. I might have some pepper?”

She gave an internal relieved sigh and shook her head. “It is fine, Dimitri. You’ve already done more for me than was needed.” And indeed, he was right when he told her it was good. Simple and easy to eat and lacking in much body, but it was pleasant and warmed her insides like little else could.

After giving her time to eat, Dimitri finally asked the question she had been waiting for. “How long –“

Her mind filled in the blanks and she interrupted him. “I’ll leave soon. You needn’t ask me more.”

He stared at her with large eyes, confusion making his brow crease. “You don’t have to leave. You’re my sister. I only want to know when you intend to tell the rest of your friends what happened.”

“What do you mean?” Edelgard was taken aback. This was not how she wanted this scenario to play out.

“Mercedes mentioned to me that Dorothea was upset. Apparently, your phone is disconnected. Ashe told me about Caspar going to your old apartment after discovering how upset Dorothea was and almost got into a fight with the doorman. Ferdinand has been using his sources to attempt to discover what happened. Annette is in his texting group and mentioned his father only told him you were on temporary leave due to emotional distress.” Dimitri began to rinse his bowl in an over-filled sink.

“How long have you known about this,” Edelgard said, too close to whisper, but he still heard her.

“Only three days.” 

“And why did you tell me only now how people are discussing me behind my back.”

Dimitri turned off the water. Leaning his back into the sink, he slouched down with his hands to hold him up. “Sometimes healing and rest take precedence over news of the world. From what I understand, Hubert is doing damage control.”

Edelgard’s mind spun over the thought. She was the last one her friends were supposed to be concerned for. Dorothea had a thousand more problems and Caspar was fool enough for how much time he spent on charity into sleepless nights and Ferdinand – Ferdinand, who didn’t know how lucky he was to avoid the stare of the board and his own father. She ground hands into her eyes.

“El,” Dimitri said.

“Don’t,” she muttered.

“…Edelgard, then.” When she looked back to him, she could have sworn there was a look of dejection on his face. “I hid nothing from you. You chose to stay hidden and I responded to that. You may take issue with me, but I would have told you if you were prepared any sooner. Do not blame me for being concerned. Do not blame your friends for their fears.”

“I just don’t know what to do,” she said.

Dragging a chair next to her, Dimitri sat beside Edelgard. He said, “You don’t need to know yet.” She said nothing to that. He went on a different tangent. “Do you still have the knife I gave you.”

“I have a knife,” she answered. She kept it in her car, in the glove box. 

If he wanted her to say anything more, Edelgard did not give it to him. Instead of asking again, Dimitri just said, “If you don’t know what to do, sleep a little longer.” He tried to laugh. “I can tell you I slept a lot more when I left my family’s company.”

“What do you think sharing such things with me will help,” she asked quietly.

Dimitri pressed his lips together tight and shrugged. At that, he left Edelgard alone in the kitchen. She took her time to stand up, but instead of leaving, she walked to the sink. It was clear he hadn’t washed the dishes in days. He didn’t even have a dish washer. She took her time to allow the scalding water to turn her hands patchy red and white. Doing something was better than doing nothing. Edelgard could pack her few belongings and leave within ten minutes. Despite herself. She stood there, for lack of anywhere better to be, and washed the dishes. Edelgard stood for hours and scrubbed at old baked in rust rather than have to return to doing nothing. In doing so, she stopped thinking. Stopped worrying. Stopped focusing on it all. In her calmed daze, she took the open box of cereal, but rather than just close it, she pulled a fistful from the bag.

Dimitri was right about the texture of Honeycomb. Edelgard wasn’t comfortable with cooking out of someone else’s fridge, but the cereal was sweet and easy to chew through. She let it dissolve under her tongue, until it made her mouth feel raw and strange. The next time Dimitri went to the store, there was a new box of Honeycomb left next to the clean sink.

**Author's Note:**

> the dimitri i'm writing here i'm ... thinking about dimitri After some of his worst emotional states, but also still slowly walking toward Getting Better. really into both edelgard AND dimitri getting released from their fucked up family bloodline misery lol.


End file.
